Cheryl Goh the inconsistent blogger

Trying on leather shoes without socks – the China way

I accompanied my friend Steve to a shoe shop in Shanghai several weeks ago. He was looking to buy a pair of leather work shoes and soon spotted one which he liked. He got the sales assistant to bring him a pair in his size and sat down to try them on.

The sales assistant gave a disapproving look as she immediately noticed he was wearing flip flops and therefore had no socks on.

Now there are two very good reasons why shoe shops should provide socks for customer who wish to try on covered up shoes:

1 People with broad feet tend to have difficulty slipping on NEW leather shoes without socks on and boy did Steve has broad feet, and

2 From the store’s point of view, socks helps reduce the shoe’s wear and tear from the sweat and stretch of people trying it on.

The sale assistant asked Steve to wait while she ran behind to get what we both presume would be a pair of socks. Instead she returned with two transparent plastic bags.

It seems that in China, you get plastic bags (which are reused - I assume for environmental reasons) instead of socks when trying on shoes.

Although the sensation of having plastic instead of fabric wrapped around your foot was pretty awkward, not to mention it looked ridiculous – Steve left the shop with a new pair of shoes in hand.